


read between the lines

by somehowunbroken



Category: DCU
Genre: Community: queer_fest, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 16:58:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1435936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not like Tim was hiding. Dick just chose not to see, and now Tim has to deal with the fallout before coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	read between the lines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [defcontwo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/gifts).



> Written for queer_fest 2014! The prompt is: _DC Comics, Tim Drake, he's bisexual and at no point was he ever really in the closet. Is it his fault everyone just assumed?_
> 
> Thanks to defcontwo for the prompt and ariadne83 for beta work.

Tim loves Saturdays with a passion shared only with his love for coffee and spreadsheets. Saturdays mean that he doesn't have to drag himself out of bed to get work done, he doesn't have to put on anything resembling office attire, and he doesn't have to attempt to tame the living rat's nest that is his hair until he's damn well ready to.

"-the hell?" someone says as Tim lets himself consider falling asleep again against actually being awake. He manages to keep his breathing even as he snaps to alertness, listening as whoever's in his kitchen drags a chair out and sits noisily. "I mean, why would he hide this?"

Dick's voice, talking on the phone. Tim lets himself relax, if not enough to actually go back to sleep. The fact that Dick's not making himself quiet means he's got something he needs to talk about, but the fact that he's not in here shaking Tim out of bed means it's not actually urgent. Tim sighs and stretches, getting a satisfying pop out of his spine before he rolls out of bed and heads for the bathroom.

He takes his time showering, because if he has to be up before he wants to be on a Saturday, then the least he can do for himself is relax in water that's maybe a little too hot. His skin is pink and a bit wrinkled by the time he shuts the water off and wraps a towel around his waist, but that's all he gets the chance to do before Dick is knocking on the bathroom door. "Tim?"

Tim sighs. "Dick, can this wait until I'm dressed, or is this something you feel the need to discuss with me while I'm naked?"

There's a noise that's either Dick shuffling his feet or… no, that's exactly what it is. Tim frowns, but Dick clears his throat. "Ah, no. I'll go get breakfast ready, how's that sound?"

"Like a terrible idea," Tim says immediately. "I like my kitchen, Dick. Please don't burn it down."

Dick snorts and knocks on the bathroom door again. "Smartass. Get dressed, okay?"

"Aye, aye," Tim grumbles as Dick walks away, opening the bathroom door and letting out all of the warm air. He shivers and manages to keep himself from running into his room and slamming the door, but it's a near thing. He loves his apartment, he really does, but the temperature controls leave something to be desired.

Once he's decent and something resembling thawed out, Tim heads for the kitchen. Dick is sitting at the table with two bowls of cereal and glasses of orange juice, but Tim walks right by him and zeroes in on the coffeepot. It's just finishing its brew cycle, so Tim grabs his Saturday morning mug out of the drying rack and pours himself a healthy cup.

He turns around and faces Dick's raised eyebrow. "Why don't you just drink it from the pot?"

Tim clutches his mug protectively to his chest. Fine, so it's bigger than a standard-sized mug. It's nine o'clock on a Saturday morning; he's entitled. "Why are you in my apartment before noon on my day off?"

Dick glances down, and it's only then that Tim sees the newspaper sitting beside Dick's place setting. It's the _Gotham Daily Tribune_ , which Tim has a subscription to at the office but not at home, so Dick clearly brought it with him.

"Tim," Dick starts, picking at the edge of the paper. "I… I'm not mad, okay, and I want to just say that up front, because I don't want you thinking I am."

"Okay," Tim says cautiously, trying to get a glimpse of whatever's in the paper. Various publications around Gotham seem to take joy in linking him romantically to different celebrities, but as far as he knows, he has yet to wake up to the announcement that he's engaged to any of Dick's exes. He'd thought they'd firmly established the "questions before punches" dynamic too, though that might be what this is leading to, now that Tim's thinking about it.

"And it's fine!" Dick adds, smiling brightly. "I mean, you're my little brother, and nothing's going to change that, not ever. So it doesn't matter, okay?"

"Dick," Tim says evenly. "Give me the newspaper."

"I just…" Dick says, trailing off. "I just wish you'd felt like you could tell me, that's all. I'm sorry for whatever I did that made you think you couldn't."

"Newspaper," Tim repeats, holding out his hand and wiggling his fingers. "Hand it over, or I'm leaving you and your feelings alone in the kitchen while I go look it up on my laptop."

Dick heaves a sigh, but he hands the paper over. It's folded open to the society section, and it's immediately obvious why Dick is in his kitchen.

"Huh," Tim says, frowning a little. "That's a tricky shot. I wonder where the photographer was hiding?" He remembers looking around before he'd leaned in for the kiss, but apparently he needs to step up his game. The paparazzi are getting _good_ , and Tim considers himself somewhat of an expert on the subject.

There's an ominous sort of stillness from across the table, and when Tim looks up, Dick is staring at him without blinking. "You okay over there?"

"Tim," Dick says slowly. "You're… you have a new boyfriend. One that you kiss on doorsteps."

"Ish," Tim corrects. "New-ish. I've been seeing Cullen for a few months, but it's only started getting serious lately. We've been talking about doing the whole meet-the-family thing, but we haven't figured out when yet. It's kind of a big deal, you know?" He shrugs. " _Waynes_. Apparently we're intimidating."

Dick's mouth is hanging slightly open. Tim watches him for a moment, and he can feel his eyebrows creeping towards his hairline as Dick stays silent. "I'm… sorry?" Tim tries when it starts getting weird. "Seriously, Dick, if I told you about everyone I had coffee with, we'd never get any actual work done. Like I said, now that it's getting serious, Cullen and I were working up to it. I was planning on letting everyone know soon."

"You're bisexual?" Dick blurts out. "I mean, I just, I didn't know! And you never said anything, and, well, Ariana and Steph and Zoanne and Darla and Tam-"

Now it's Tim's turn to stare as Dick drags out the name of every woman he's dated, as well as every woman he's ever had so much as a passing interest in.

"Dick," he says after a minute of listening to him list female Titans left and right. "First of all, wow, the level of interest you're taking in my love life is kind of creepy. Secondly, I have no idea how you could have missed half of said love life if you were paying attention as closely as it sounds like you were."

"What?"

"Well, you've got everything short of an annotated list of all the women I've dated," Tim says. "Or flirted with, or talked to, for that matter. Donna Troy? Really?"

"Donna is wonderful," Dick protests. "Why wouldn't you-"

"Because she's a friend," Tim cuts in. He's got the feeling he's going to need Tylenol before this conversation is over. "And that's all she is to me, and all I am to her. We've only talked outside of missions a handful of times."

Dick frowns. "That could be enough," he insists.

"And yet you missed all the guys I've dated over the years, all of whom I've talked to way more than I've talked to Donna Troy, my not-girlfriend," Tim says dryly. "Excellent detective skills, Dick. Truly stunning."

"Guys you've dated," Dick echoes. "More than one?"

Tim pinches the bridge of his nose and promises himself a nap later on. Maybe he'll put in _Pacific Rim_ and make pizza bagels. "Yes, Dick. More than one."

"Who?"

"Guys from school," Tim says. "Guys I've worked with. Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't!" Dick says way too quickly. He pauses, a sudden hopeful look coming over his face. "Guys from school and work? People I don't know, then?"

Tim sighs. "You remember Ives?"

"Yeah," Dick says. Tim waits a beat. "Oh, wait, you mean…"

Definitely, definitely going to need Tylenol. He's adding ice cream to the movie and pizza bagels party, too. "Yes, Dick. Why would I bring him up in a conversation about ex-boyfriends if he wasn't an ex-boyfriend?"

"I…" Dick appears to be at a loss for words, which might be a new record. Tim considers snapping a picture as proof, but his phone is still on his bedstand. It's probably not even fully charged yet, given the fact that it's still ungodly o'clock and he hadn't gotten in especially early last night.

"I'm going to make this easy for you," Tim says as patiently as he can manage. "I'll give you a few names, okay? You can fit the pieces together and figure out the things you missed."

Dick nods weakly.

"Ives," Tim repeats. "Kon-El. Bernard Dowd. Connor Hawke."

"Connor Hawke?" Dick yelps.

Tim glares. "You don't get to freak out about this," he says sternly. "You do not get to have my big bisexual freak-out for me, okay?"

"I just… I can't believe you didn't say anything, that's all," Dick says after a moment. "I mean, when you _did_ have your… freak-out."

"I didn't have one," Tim says, setting his coffee mug down. It's too much of a temptation to throw it if he's still holding it. "Dick, by the time I figured out that most people _don't_ like both genders, I was completely comfortable with the fact that I did."

"Oh," Dick says. "So…"

"I was never in the closet," Tim says firmly. "You assumed I was straight because I didn't explicitly tell you otherwise." He leans forward. "Want to hear something that's not a secret? I'm bi."

Dick finally, _finally_ comes out of his funk enough to glare. "You don't have to be a jerk about it."

"You broke into my apartment to confront me about the biggest not-secret in my life," Tim replies, picking his coffee back up and taking a nice, long sip. "On a Saturday morning. And you didn't even have the common decency to bring baked goods."

"So what you're telling me is that the next time we need to have what I think is going to be some brotherly bonding time, I should bring donuts," Dick deadpans.

Tim takes another sip of coffee and stares at Dick for a moment. "How about this?" he suggests. "Next time you think we need to have a brotherly bonding session over some aspect of my life that you discovered, something that I didn't actively try to hide from you or from anyone else, consider whether or not it's something that we really need to talk about."

"Tim," Dick says, sounding hurt.

"Not that I don't like talking to you," Tim adds, "but come on."

There's a moment of silence before Dick sighs. "But the donuts would have helped?"

"You can never go wrong with donuts," Tim says wisely. His coffee mug is empty. Luckily for him, he's got at least another cup and a half left in the pot. He fills his mug to the brim and ignores Dick's raised eyebrow.

"So when do we get to meet him? Cullen, you said?" Dick asks. Apparently he's past whatever crisis he was having over Tim's sexuality and is moving on into "embarrass little brother" mode.

"You didn't bring enough donuts to find that out," Tim says airily. "Also, we need to check the date with Alfred. I don't think there's anything scheduled, but…"

He lets it hang, and Dick winces. He's the most frequent violator of the "check everything with Alfred in advance" rule, and it bites him in the ass on a routine basis. "Yeah, you do that. Not a good idea to have your boyfriend's first Alfred encounter be the raised eyebrow of doom."

Tim rolls his eyes. "His first Alfred encounter went well, thanks for the concern."

"Alfred _knows_?"

"Alfred has known I'm bi since I was thirteen," Tim says. "He and Cullen met a month ago, because I brought some of Alfred's tea biscuits over, and Cullen wanted the recipe." Alfred's got a strict policy for handing out recipes: he'll do it, but only if the recipient is willing to come over and watch him prepare the recipe in question. He says there are important things in the process that don't translate well to paper. Tim has had Cullen's attempt at Alfred's tea biscuits, and he has to say that whatever Alfred taught him worked.

Dick gives him the big puppy dog eyes of doom. "Okay, so Alfred already knows him. Just promise I get to meet him before Bruce does."

Tim's cell phone chirps quietly from his bedroom. Tim glances at the clock; yeah, that'll probably be Cullen, texting to see if he's awake and wants to catch an early lunch before Cullen has to go into work.

"Tell you what," he says, setting his coffee cup down and heading for the bedroom. "Let's see what we can do about that."


End file.
